CISPA, the Privacy-Invading Cybersecurity Spying Bill, is Back in Congress
A coalition of Internet advocacy organizations and individuals are launching a week of action to combat the CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
Please take a moment to learn more about why CISPA is a bad idea, then send a message to your Representatives asking them to oppose this bill. Visit the sites below for more information…
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/cispa-privacy-invading-cybersecurity-spying-bill-back-congress
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/week-action-opposing-cispa
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9048
Changes to Paper Billing
For customers that do not use a credit or debit card, but instead receive a paper statement or invoice via US Mail, we are changing when we mail out paper statements. Services have always been paid in advance of the next service period. We had been mailing out paper statements about two weeks before the beginning of the next service period. We will now be mailing out paper statements about a week earlier. This was due, in part, to technical reasons regarding the time it takes to suspend, cancel, or reactivate DSL service and DSL lines of customers that use broadband DSL Internet service.
We ask that any customer who, as a result of this change, or for any other reason, needs a few extra days to pay their bill to please e-mail or call our office so arrangements can be made to accommodate their needs. Also, any customer who would like to adjust the day of the month that statements are sent out or are due may call our office to make that kind of adjustment.
[resolved] DSL Outage, Wmbg & Newport News Area, 1/19/2013
Beginning just before noon on, Saturday, January 19, 2013, some broadband aDSL customers in the Williamsburg, Newport News, and surrounding areas started experiencing trouble getting connected or surfing. The telephone company is aware of the problem and is working on it now. At this time there is no ETR (estimated time of repair). Once we get an update from the telephone company we will pass it along here. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Update Saturday, 1/19/2013, 12:30 PM: Most affected customers have reported that their service began working again around 12:30pm. However, as the phone company continues their work, there may be periods that service stops working. Once the phone company reports that all repairs are completed we will update this message.
If you were affected, but your service is still not working again, please reboot your equipment by turning off (or unplugging the power to), and turning back on, your DSL modem as well as your router (if you have one). Once the equipment reboots, which usually takes about 2 minutes, restart your computer and check your Internet connection.
After rebooting your DSL modem and router and waiting about 2 minutes, if you still cannot connect, please contact us with your name, telephone number, and acct# (if you know it). Please provide the status of the lights on your DSL modem. Let us know which lights are lit up solid and which lights (if any) are out, or blinking. Be sure to leave your equipment connected and turned on.
Update Sunday, 1/20/2013 5:12 PM: Most customers continue to be working, however, Verizon is still working on the cause of the problem and interruptions may still occur. Per Verizon, they are waiting on a replacement card to resolve the issue. Still no ETR at this time.
Update Monday, 1/21/2013: Verizon reports that repairs are complete.
Holiday Hours for Widomaker
Our Christmas / New Years Holiday Hours are as follows:
Christmas
Monday, December 24th: Office Closed – Phone Support 8am to 2pm
Tuesday, December 25th: Office Closed – No Phone Support Hours
Normal Office / Phone Support hours resume on Wednesday, December 26th.
New Years
Monday, December 31st: Office Closed – Phone Support 8am to 2pm
Tuesday, January 1st: Office Closed – No Phone Support Hours
Normal Office / Phone Support hours resume on Wednesday, January 2nd.
56K Dialup Account Changes
Sometime this week (week of Tuesday, Dec. 18th, 2012) we will be making some changes to our 56K dialup services. This should not affect most of our 56K dialup users. However, in some cases, if the user hasn’t connected via dialup recently, they might not be able to log in after the changes take place. In that case, affected users should call our office to have any dialup login issues quickly resolved. These changes do not affect any of our other services such as DSL.
Thanksgiving Hours
In observation of the Thanksgiving Day holiday, we will be closed on Thursday, November 22nd, 2012.
Phone Support hours will be the normal 8am to 8pm on Friday and 10am to 4pm on Saturday, but the office will be closed.
Normal hours will resume on Monday, November 26th.
All systems will remain monitored and any status updates can be found here, as well as by calling our support line (757-253-7621) and listening to the automated message.
Hurricane Sandy 2012
As Hurricane Sandy approaches, please make sure you have prepared. Visit your local city or county web site for preparedness information. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Visit the Ready Virginia site. Make a list of important phone numbers.
Severe weather like Hurricane Sandy can cause power outages, flooding, and other damage which can cause interruptions to your Internet connection. Before that happens, make sure you have alternate methods of getting up to date information and communicating with friends and family. Make sure you have a battery powered radio with fresh batteries. Make sure you have your cell phones charged and have your home and car charger for them.
If you have a land-line telephone at your location, make sure you have a corded (hard-wired) telephone that you can connect. Cordless telephones do not usually work during power outages.
Service and status information from Widomaker can be found on our website (http://home.widomaker.com/), our blog site (http://weblog.widomaker.com/), our Facebook page, our Twitter page, and by calling our office (757-253-7621).
Dominion VA Power info can be found on their Storm Center web page. They are also on Twitter and Facebook.
Once the storm has passed, and if you have power, please report any service problems by contacting our office by telephone or e-mail.
Internet Explorer 0-Day Vulnerability
There is a zero-day vulnerability that has been discovered and in the wild exploiting Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (7, 8, and 9). Due to this, it would be a good idea to switch web browsers for a few weeks until security updates can be released for Internet Explorer. Also, make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date.
The following are several other web broswers you can install and use:
- Mozilla Seamonkey – Seamonkey is an all-in-one internet application suite containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client with an included web feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera
September 3rd 2012 – Office Closed
In observation of the September 3rd Labor Day holiday, we will be closed on Monday, September 3rd, 2012.
Normal hours will resume on Tuesday, September 4th.
All systems will remain monitored and any status updates can be found here, as well as by calling our support lines and listening to the automated message system greeting.
[Fixed] Intermittent DSL issue on 8/17/2012
As of the morning of, Friday, August, 17th 2012, there is a known issue effecting aDSL customers in the area. Effected customers may experience intermittent connectivity.
We have reported the problem to the telephone company and Network technicians are working on the problem now. We hope it will be resolved quickly.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Updates will be provided via our automated telephone system by calling 757-253-7621 (option 2), on our weblog, or on our members website located at http://home.widomaker.com/
Update 10:46am: The phone company has reported that, after replacing some equipment, the problem has been resolved around 9:00am.
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